


Museum Pieces

by orphan_account



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, Gen, One Shot, Time War Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 23:10:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1665944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He realizes that both of them are living artifacts now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Museum Pieces

The Arkenstein Museum of History was either the universe’s third or fourth largest collection of alien obscura, depending on who you asked. The Doctor remembered walking down these marble halls sometime before in a previous life, though he wasn’t quite sure on the detail of which it was.

He approached a glass case and examined it, and with a misplaced arm movement set off some sort of virtual tour guide. "This room is home to artifacts from the Traken Union, an empire that once controlled..." a synthesized imitation of a perky female voice began to chatter.

"That's enough of that! Time to quiet down." He muted the AI with a quick surge from his screwdriver. Museums were meant to be quiet, he thought.

He studied the plaque that sat above the case.

_Relics of The Traken Union_

_Little is known today about the empire that once dominated the Mettula Orionsis system. Estimated to have spanned anywhere from four to eight planets, the Union was known for a culture of great peace and tranquility. Local myths implied that evil itself would turn to stone when arriving on the planet due to the effects of some great source of power. While this is almost certainly a mere fable, it does give an illustration of the Union’s reputation. The destruction of this culture happened under mysterious circumstances approximately 2,000 years ago. Few artifacts from Traken are known to still exist._

His eyes focused on a chain of smooth wooden baubles that lay above the plaque. Nyssa used to have some like that, he recalled.

"Prayer beads," a girl said. "For praying that peace would come to the universe."

The Doctor turned to her and saw an unexpected familiar face: a girl dressed all in velvet, her hair a veritable bush of curls, her expression quietly somber. She wouldn't have any idea who he was now that he wore a different face, but he remembered her well.

"At least, that's what the archaeologists speculate," she added as an afterthought.

"All very beautiful artifacts," the Doctor said. "A culture dedicated to peace. Can really respect something like that. The universe's other civilizations could stand to be more like that, eh?"

She called his attention to another part of the exhibit with a minute gesture. "Those were instruments called kehrn harps. They’re supposed to have made some of the most beautiful music you’d ever hear."

A civilization that no longer was, that had been erased from the sky, its stars snuffed out, and yet, one of its people lived to see: to observe the ever-fading footprint a dead empire left behind. The two people in the universe best equipped to understand such a concept were quietly standing straight up, looking at history behind bulletproof glass.

"Nyssa? Nyssa? I said not to wander too far off on your own," came a voice calling from one or two rooms over. The Doctor felt an almost tingle at his throat, the ghost of words, because that was his own voice from centuries ago. Of all the millions of days the TARDIS could've chosen, she landed on the singular one where he'd been to the Museum before.

"I've gotta go find a friend in just a moment," the older Doctor said. "One question. The harps. What do you think they would've sounded like?"

"I'm not sure, but I'd imagine that when a father is sitting in his garden, playing his little daughter's favorite tune, that it would sound just like water rushing down a little brook." She straightened her posture, her face crinkling and catching shadows in a way that momentarily made her look far older than her true age. “You must think I’m very silly.”

“Actually, I don’t. Not at all.” He then left quickly, not getting a chance to say goodbye because he knew his younger self was headed this way. About to go stop Adric from causing trouble again, he recalled.

A few rooms over, Rose fixated on a singular object in a case. "Doctor, look at this! It looks like the same writing that you use in the TARDIS."

He saw at an old tablet, marked with carvings of rings within rings like the interior of a clockwork machine. "Didn't think I'd see something like this here. This is a language that doesn't exist any more outside of me."

"Can you read it, Doctor?" Rose asked.

"The text was nothing special. It's a children's rhyme, a story that every child on my planet would've known. Story about a beast that devours the Web of Time."

"That's what your nursery rhymes were like? Yikes. Not exactly Disney movie material, eh?"

"You should read some of the Grimm Brothers' first editions. There's some 'yikes' for you." He tried to punctuate his sentence with a laugh, but it came out as more of an awkward hiccup.

Nyssa. He realizes that both of them are living artifacts now: the last dying remnants of places that no one else remembers. She’s so young, he thinks. He’s a relic from a civilization that lived billions of years, a society so old that only a few fragments of its bones have yet to decay. Nyssa? She’s only seen eighteen tiny revolutions of her planet around its sun at this point, if he remembers correctly, and already a museum piece.

He remembered something she’d said to him once. Her planet was beyond help, she had told him, so the best thing he could do to ease her grief was to keep traversing the universe, keep saving worlds so that other people wouldn't have to feel the same thing she felt.

He’d never realized how personal those words would become.


End file.
